Spanner (cle a pipe in French)

What does single hex mean?

Single hex means the socket in the tool is not multi-point like a normal socket.

Power tool and industrial tools for production lines are often single hex as they will be less likely to slip.

Single hex is the shape of a hex bolt or nut head, with just enough clearance to fit.

My previous business was with antique, vintage and classic motorbikes.

Many hours were saved by using a 13mm single hex power tool socket on a 1/4 whitworth rusty nut that was frozen solid with rust and age. A bit of Oxy-Acetylene to get it red hot, hammer on the undersize socket and Robert was the name of your fathers brother! Worked almost every time.

As the fastners would be replaced anyway, it could not be considered bodging, just expedient.
 
It is six sided socket, so that the nut is gripped along each side.

Double-hex is a 12 sided star shaped socket where the nut is gripped only on the corners & when the nut is damaged it is likely to slip & cause "spanner rash" as your knuckles hit adjacent metalwork. Double hex has the advantage that you have twice as many angles that the spanner can fit onto the nut, which is useful when there isn't far to move the handle before hitting an obstruction.

ie single hex can only fit on the nut at 60deg intervals, double hex manages a 30deg incremental fit.

.Thank you. Clear and helpful.
 
as Marcel Duchamp eloquently put it :D

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Quite a lot of engineering terms are not very PC. i.e. male and female fits.. My father wae at college in the late 30s.The place had a fully commercial foundry and there were two girls on the course. Unusual at that time. The Foundry guy was old school and did not approve of 'wimin' doing proper mens jobs. So asked one to get a female mould for casting a part. She came back a bit puzzled. He pointed out the difference very explicitly ( pegs and sockets between the the parts) Poor girl was very red faced. Quite cruel. But not unusual for the day.
DW
 
If you meet a French woman on a street corner and she offers you "une pipe" she is very definitely not offering to lend you a spanner. :o

But she will tighten your nuts....

hat, coat, etc

I would call this spanner a tube spanner. the 14mil example is also available in a thin walled version for undoing the fan on A-series ( 2cv etc) Citroëns.

Which is a bit of a hurrah.
 
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I would call this spanner a tube spanner. the 14mil example is also available in a thin walled version for undoing the fan on A-series ( 2cv etc) Citroëns.

Which is a bit of a hurrah.

this would be a "clé à tube" in French, this is bent but there are also straight ones, usually with two different sizes at the two ends
Cle-en-tube-nervus-20-mm-ref-92A-20-FACOM-Outils-311078230_ML.jpg


I found a picture of "clé à tube droite"
518.08XX_70-86__17.jpg




I must say I am very surprised the OP spanner is not so know in the UK, it's the land where mechanics were born, plus you have all sorts of very weird tools and these spanners appear so basic, it's really a supermarket thing here.
The funniest British tool was shown to me by friend/forumite macd: it is a sort of locking pliers where the two jaws grab two wire ends, lock, then by pulling a third handle of the pliers they would rotate and twist the two wires together, very funny :)
 
" The funniest British tool was shown to me by friend/forumite macd: it is a sort of locking pliers where the two jaws grab two wire ends, lock, then by pulling a third handle of the pliers they would rotate and twist the two wires together, "

Sounds like the kind of tool I have been looking for to fit wire ties to hold the chick wire to the steel reinforcing on ferro cement structures before plastering.

Ant pics of online supplier ?
 
" The funniest British tool was shown to me by friend/forumite macd: it is a sort of locking pliers where the two jaws grab two wire ends, lock, then by pulling a third handle of the pliers they would rotate and twist the two wires together, "

Sounds like the kind of tool I have been looking for to fit wire ties to hold the chick wire to the steel reinforcing on ferro cement structures before plastering.

Ant pics of online supplier ?

Sorry I did not even know it existed... You may send a private message to forumite "macd", I am sure he will tell you everything :)

Oh, I just made a quick search with "twisting pliers" and here they are :) "wire twisting pliers" etc there are a number of suppliers
14001_43_1.jpg


SAFETY_WIRE_PLIERS.jpg



edit
there is also a youtube video, is it the thing you are looking after maybe ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU-NAX7vwfY
 
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Wow thanks guys I didn't know such a tool was available will help me greatly in the job I have do do next year. Just have to find one in my current location.

Thks again
 
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